Fans of GSC Game World's S.TA.L.K.E.R. series of first person shooters will be happy to know that the third game, S.T.A.K.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, has now been declared as "gone gold" by the developer on its Russian language web site (we checked out a Babel Fish translation for the heads up). The site also states that the game will ship to stores on October 2.

Of course, that's the release date for the Russian version of the game. So far there's been no word at all on a US release date or even a US distributor for the sequel.German-based bitComposer Games announced a little while ago that they had secured the worldwide publishing rights to the title. We do know that the game will be one of the first to support DirectX11-based graphics.

Gallery: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat